Jerk Shrimp

After Mimi’s pineapple gazpacho, we continued on our Caribbean theme dinner with this delightfully spicy jerk shrimp. It was citrusy, earthy, sweet and spicy, a true flavor explosion in you head. This dish came about because of our last trip to the Caribbean. Now in the post on pickled chipotles I pointed out we are chile heads. One of the ways to know you are a true chile head is when you realize more than half of the souvenirs from that last tropical vacation were hot sauces and spices. Sure enough, when we went to Puerto Rico last year, we stopped by a little spice shop just for grins. In the process of entertaining ourselves we proceeded to buy a myriad of hot sauces and seasonings.

Fun stuff. 🙂 One of the seasonings we bought was some jerk seasoning as we really enjoy Caribbean jerk. Oddly enough, we had yet to try the jerk seasoning. So, considering we were on a Caribbean theme meal, this gave us the perfect opportunity to try it. Everything as delightful and the jerk seasoning went remarkably well with the shrimp accompanied by spur of the moment coconut rice. This is what we did.

Ingredients

1 lb shrimp (26 – 30 count)

1 Tbsp. light brown sugar

1 Tbsp. sea salt (or to taste)

1 tsp. freshly ground pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 limes, juiced

2 oranges juiced

2 Serrano peppers (you should actually use scotch bonnet of habanero peppers but we didn’t have any)

Writing from Australia you would probably believe that most of us know but little about jerk seasoning: we do the ‘Asian bit’ more than the Caribbean/Mexican 🙂 ! I know that jerk seasoning is available at every supermarket tho’ and this seems very appealing – so the recipe has been bookmarked 🙂 ! Oh, lovely plating!!

Hi Richard, I had never heard of jerk before. At least not as food 😉 This looks and sounds very tasty! I had to smile at the picture of the hot sauce collection 🙂 Something like that might happen when we enter a cheese shop, or one with kitchen tools…

Hi, Stefan. Jerk (as in food) is a Caribbean method of cooking (similar to smoking meat) that originated in Jamaica. The food is highly seasoned with a jerk rub and cooked over an open pit. The original manner in which it was cooked was to cut certain trees/saplings a certain length, not to cure the wood but lay the green wood over an open pit, season the pork or chicken heavily with a jerk rub heavily spiced with scotch bonnet chiles, and put the meat directly on top of the wood. You get an indirect heat and the smoke flavor of the wood comes through in the meat. It’s bold, spicy and incredibly flavorful. Over time the technique has changed and jerk seasoning started appearing on seafood and other dishes that were impractical to smoke/cook over an open pit.

No problem, I certainly know what that’s like. When initially the post generated much less likes and comments than usual, I was worrying there was something wrong again.
Anyway, I thought you and the Baby Lady would really like the spicy pork belly, so I was wondering what you’d say about my recipe.

Hello Richard Love Love Love it.Jerk Shrimp wowwee I love spicy foods and you just hit the nail on the head .I love how you plated it with the rice and put the shrimp around it.I am surprised you don’t try to get your own cooking show you are good.Soon I will posting my jerk cuisine and its going to be good.

Hi, Nicole. We’re glad you liked this recipe. It’s definitely got a kick and a lot of flavors, just up your alley. 🙂 I’m looking forward to seeing your jerk recipes. It definitely is one of my favorite cuisines. 🙂